In March 2015, graduate students voted No to a rise in ancillary fees at McMaster. We collectively opposed the idea that we should pay up to 200% more for services without seeing a budget which specified how these fees would be spent. McMaster’s graduate students came together to scream “WAIT!” to the administration. Please wait until we have seen a clear budget. Please wait until our Teaching Assistants have negotiated their collective agreement. Please wait, just until the winter, so that we can understand why we are being asked to pay more money for mental health services that, by all accounts, are not working as it is. McMaster refused to wait. Instead, a vote was forced and thousands of graduate students are currently without mental health care as a result.

Graduate students at McMaster University were given an ultimatum: pay more, or you are on your own when it comes to your mental health. The No Campaign won the referendum, with 50.4% voting No to a Rise in Student Fees, and 51.4% voting No to Fees for Career Services. This was a tight vote, and reflects the difficult position of graduate students who must choose between challenging austerity measures while also fearing the loss of our essential services. On May 2nd of this year, McMaster lit University Hall green in honour of mental health week, calling for students to #GETLOUD for mental health. One day earlier, McMaster completely removed graduate student access to “counseling services (triage, individual counseling, group programming, and outreach presentations and workshops).” To add insult to injury we didn’t find out until May 6th that the services we depend on, the services we have already paid for this year, had been taken away from us.

We must recognize that the services that we have lost target those amongst us who are the most vulnerable. These services are essential to those of us who need support due to language barriers, learning disabilities, chronic illnesses, and mental health issues. Significantly, economic inequality exacerbates all of these experiences, making it even more difficult for those of us who are poor, working-class, or financially responsible for dependents to access these services elsewhere for an additional fee. Economic inequality also makes it more likely we will need to access these services in the first place and now these services have been taken away. We must ask what this will mean for graduate students at McMaster who experience sexual violence on our campus and are in need of counselling, we must ask what this will mean for those of us who experience mental health issues and how this will affect our roles as researchers, teachers, students, family members, and friends We must ask what this says about McMaster and its priorities and its dedication to “moving forward with integrity.”

The thing about madness is that it often breeds resilience, and we have seen mad and mentally ill students and allies begin to mobilize. We are sending you this letter in hopes of you setting right this gross injustice against McMaster’s graduate student community. Please consider restoring our access to mental health services and release the budget for the proposed rise in fees so that we can make a careful and educated decision about the services that we pay for and so that we can move forward with integrity, together.